LIVING AND DYING IN MODERN TIBET
by Orgyan Nyima

PREFACE

I was born in Lungda Village located in a Kham1 area in the early 1970s, attended a local primary school in the early 1980s, and received an undergraduate education in a provincial level college. Memories of my early life in Lungda Village are my vivid companions. Let me give you some examples: Daily village life moved to a rhythm of herding, milking, fetching water, spreading fresh dung on the ground to dry, collecting dry dung, and chatting. One day, three people speaking a southern (south of Gawa) dialect visited Trashi Penpa's home. Children of the host family called one of the men 'Uncle Handless'. He was in his fifties and his name matched him. His arms ended at his wrists, which were covered with skin. It seemed elbows had replaced his hands. He wore a wool-fabric robe that had probably never been washed. The natural wool color had become darker over the years. His arms were just like the upper legs of Trashi Penpa's pawless dog. We called the dog 'Pawless', which was why I assumed the host family children addressed their distant uncle as 'Uncle Handless'.

Those who speak this southern dialect seemed in constant need of barley, the basic staple food. If a household lacked barley, we assumed that they were short of all other food. Beggars, wanderers, and barley traders often seemed to speak the same dialect. They might have been from Zurmang, Nangchen, or Chamdo. I could not distinguish between dialects very well. Locals called these people Lhowa 'Southerners'. The host family accompanied their guests to each community household to trade strings of small bells for barley, trailed by the crippled dog. I was frightened when Trashi Penpa's children escorted Uncle Handless through the gate. I was sitting on Grandmother's lap as she spun wool in the courtyard. I was scared of strangers who spoke dialects different than my own because Grandmother threatened that she would give me to strangers to be their son when I was very disobedient. My fear was gradually replaced by curiosity. Uncle Handless had many thumb-sized bells in strings around his left arm. It was fun to watch the action. Uncle Handless energetically ordered his companions to do this and that. It seemed that the other two men didn't know what to do without him. Grandmother traded a small bag of barley for a string of bells. Holding the upper cover of the bags, Uncle said, "Tie it," and another man tied the bag shut with string. They then continued door to door, visiting every household.

I followed them as did other children. Uncle Handless held the bags and the balance, did the weighing, and counted the bells. He did it all very skillfully. In the end, various-sized bags of barley accumulated in Trashi Penpa's family courtyard. Three men weighed, reloaded, and marked the bags. They also traded brown sugar for barley. I did not understand the trade arrangement for these items.

The barley traders soon left, leaving tinkling bells here and there in the village. Children rhythmically shook strings of bell, competing to see who could make the most noise. Bells were hung under the gate roof to ring when the gate opened. Bells were also hung around the neck of favorite goats and sheep. The tinkle of bells was truly Uncle Handless's legacy.
Uncle Handless had been a terribly bad man – a criminal, a murderer, a thief, a bandit, and a vicious fighter. His habitual evil was unstoppable until he was made physically incapable of carrying out criminal acts. In the end, his legendary criminal life was ended by a local chief, who ordered that his hands be amputated carefully so as to not leave bone fragments in the wounds.

My childhood memories include the accounts I heard from my parents' and grandparents' generations as they recounted experiences from their, at that time, recent pasts. Those who were twenty years of age and older had all experienced the darkest part of our history - a time when starvation and modern weapons of war such as planes, mortars, and machine guns threatened our very physical existence. Their memories and stories were fresh, clear, and vivid.

I interviewed several locals who were born in the 1930s and 1940s. Their individual narrative accounts are presented without judgment. The same name that occurs in different narratives refers to the same person. All narrators were from villages near each other and narrators tell, at times, the same general story from different angles. For example, Dorje Trashi and Sonam Trashi fled together as fugitives. Each refers to the other in their account as 'Cousin'. The different perspectives of their common journey complement each other.

As the narrators talked to me about their past, they were transported back to that violently chaotic era. Memories, refreshed, they recalled people from their past and remembered more events. Narrators questioned their own stories and repeatedly said, "It is hard to believe what we went through." Their grandchildren, and even their own children, continue to question the harsh reality of what their parents and grandparents experienced.

Violence is a recurring theme. The stories occurred in a particular historic context in which violence and death drove events and were commonplace. Violence is memorable, and highlights the ordinary lives of the narrators as they recalled and relived their pasts as I talked to them. As Eric Hoffer wrote, "The game of history is usually played by the best and the worst over the heads of the majority in the middle." In the context of this book, the game of history favored the worst by providing them a platform to perform the dark side of human nature, inevitably creating a mountain of misery.

In the second decade of the twenty-first century, a global, consumer-based economy drives every corner of a Tibet that has been embraced by a market-driven economy. RMB provides, on the surface at least, whatever is desired.

Many locals seem to have accepted the value of relentlessly pursuing material prosperity. Locals self- sustaining livelihood has largely vanished. Many farmers no longer farm and many herders no longer herd. Villages are incorporated into cities. Trade between pastoralists and farmers has no modern role.

The narrators' description of the economic and cultural background of their lives before and during the political and military interventions in their home area provides a rich tapestry upon which I record individual lives in the context of historical events while describing
the local culture, economy, and intimacies of individual narrators.

This history of calamity is still largely untouchable, given modern political realities. I masked the names of villages, monasteries, and certain individuals. Anonymity is the only mechanism narrators and I can use to honestly present these accounts. By the year 2025, few witnesses to this time will still be alive, emphasizing the value of this book.

These interwoven, connected narratives describe events in the geographic center of the Tibet Plateau in the mid-twentieth century. It is an enormous area where great mountain ranges have an average altitude of 5,500 meters. Countless snow-covered peaks exceed 6,000 meters. Even in midsummer, snow colors the peaks white. Many tiny streams of melting snow run through innumerable alpine valleys, rushing to join the greatest rivers of Asia that originate here. These streams water the grassland and provide drinking water for people, livestock, and wildlife.

These vast areas are overwhelmingly pastoral. Few areas are suitable for agriculture. The limited farmland is in deep valleys where narrow barley fields parallel river banks. Roasted barley ground into flour is mixed with butter, hot tea, dried cheese, and sugar and then eaten. Historically, farmers and herders obtained tsampa 'barley flour', butter, and cheese from each other, meeting mutual needs at annual trade fairs during winter religious festivals in farming areas. Tsampa is thus a food that perfectly combines pastoral and agricultural products. Each group could not have produced such food without acquiring part of the ingredients from the other.

This book is a record of individual lives in the context of historical events while describing the local culture, economy, and intimate events of individual narrators. My childhood was little different from Mother's and Grandmother's childhoods in term of food, housing, and way of life. This allows me to understand and articulate the narrators' cultural background. Grandmother and I both grew up in the same century-old two-story house. The ground floor was divided into an animal shelter and a barley storage room. Two small glassless windows featured four vertical wooden bars to keep out stray cats. The main house door was located in the animal shelter. A glassless window provided light for that dark room.

A wooden-framed yak-leather box containing barley was the same height as Grandmother, who was much taller than Mother. Grandmother easily poured barley into the top of that hair-covered leather box and then took grain out from the bottom by opening a small hole whenever grain was needed. I am sure Grandmother was reluctant to enter the dark storage room when she was a child. She used to threaten to lock me inside that room when I became very disobedient. This warning worked, as I pictured the hairy box in the dark corner transforming into a monster.

No electricity and no plastic products cluttered my early childhood. The first time that I saw an electric light bulb was in Father's home when I was six. I switched the light on and off out of curiosity and to amuse myself. Father told me not to stare at the bright bulb because it would hurt my eyes. I then, or course, stared at the shining bulb when Father was absent and thought, "It doesn't hurt my eyes. My eyes aren't painful."

I was dressed in traditional homemade costume - a sheep-skin robe in winter and a cloth robe in summer. Mother was a skilled seamstress and made my boots, shirts, and robes. She also helped sew for neighbor children.

Grandmother and Great Grandmother ate the same food as I did. Our food supplies were seasonal. Potatoes, meat, and fresh butter were available in autumn and winter. Old meat, old butter, and dried meat were characteristic of spring food, which I disliked. Yogurt, milk, and cheese were abundant in summer. We even fed yogurt to dogs.

Narrators featured in this book had much the same cultural and economic environment as I did. I was born at the right time, and in the right place to understand, interpret, translate, and record their narratives.

The narrators are the real authors. Memories are who we are, where we have been, and where we will go. They are our coherence.

Orgyan Nyima

CONTENTS



Preface <4>
Contents <10>
Narrators <16>

Part One: Two Decades Before the Red Chinese Occupation <20>

Chodron: One <22>
o Jangtsang Awo Marries Great Grandaunt <22>
o Jangtsang Awo is a Hero <23>
o The Tibet Army is Defeated <27>
o Consulting A Deity <29>

Samdrubcho <32>
o Five Tribes Against Drawu <32>
o Reinforcement Troops From Ziling <33>

Chodron: Two <36>
o The Dege-Drawu Conflict <36>
o Chodron Gives an Eyewitness Account <43>

Choying Dorje <46>
o A Rolling Boulder <46>
o Encountering a Ghost <47>
o Renouncing Hunting <47>
o A Mountain Deity Kidnaps Grandfather's Servant <48>
o Grandfather Fights the Tibet Army <51>
o Uncle Butruk <51>
o Unexpected Peaceful Liberation <54>

Part Two: 1940s-1970s <58>

Lhakpa Wangmo <60>
o Father's Caravan Trip <61>
o Chinese Come to Our Village <63>
o Village Men Hide in the Mountains <65>
o Escape From the Village <67>
o Commune Life <70>
o Attending a Tent School <71>
o Chasing Wolves Away <73>
o A Deity Protects the Sheep <75>
o The Fate of Tsering's Family <76>
o Father's Death <82>
o Drolma Saves People <86>
o Home Again <88>
o Killing a Leopard <92>
o Brother's Death <96>
o Stealing Barley <97>
o The Cultural Revolution <101>
o Destroying Religion <106>
o Confessions <109>
o Worshiping Mao <111>
o Kidnapped by a Ghost <113>
o Mother Visits Drolma in Dondrubling Town <117>
o Dog Massacre <118>
o Becoming a Mother <121>

Kunga Zangpo <126>
o Encounter a Hared-Lipped Red Man <126>
o Joining the Resistance <127>
o Suffering from Public Struggle Meetings <133>

Paldan <136>
o Watching a Battle From a Tent <136>

Gedar <140>
o My Parents and Aunt Die <140>
o I Saved a Chinese Man and Good Karma Returned to Me <141>

Chimé Wangmo <142>
o A Pregnant Nun <142>
o A Fugitive Life <143>
o Life in Prison <144>

Sonam Trashi <148>
o Carving Mani Stones After Grandfather's Death <148>
o Learning to Write Tibetan <149>
o Herders' Visits <153>
o Trade Between Herders and Farmers <156>
o Bandits <158>
o A Novice Monk <161>
o Trucks <163>
o A Mysterious Sound <163>
o Father's Double Identity <163>
o Hydrophobia <165>
o Rich and Poor <166>
o Journey to the Holy City <169>
o No Food After the Night Raid <184>
o Return Home <192>
o My Fugitive Life <195>
o Our Fugitive Life Ends and Father's Arrest <197>
o Starving to Death <201>
o Second Fugitive Life <202>
o Eating With Pigs <205>
o From Street Child to Thief <206>
o Marmot Hunting, Tractor Mechanic, and Becoming a Father <212>

Tsewang Chodron <220>
o The Airstrike <220>
o Mistaken for the Daughter of a Prominent Figure <222>

Tsering Sonam <226>
o Dukarkyab <226>
o Protecting the Naturally Arisen Mani Stone <232>

Chimé <238>
o King Gesar's Failed Divination <238>
o Stealing Horses <240>
o The Battle in Dondrubling <242>

Dorje Trashi <248>
o My Fugitive Life <248>
o Gakla People Kill a Chinese Man <254>
o Lhawa - the Spirit Medium <255>
o Embracing the Motherland <257>
o A Fruitless Harvest <259>
o Robbery <260>
o Grandmother's Death <261>
o Mother's Death <261>
o The Hard Winter of 1960 <262>
o Disobeying a Teacher <265>
o Tortured <266>
o A Bowl of Roasted Barley <270>
o Killing a Goat <271>
o The Commune Discovers the Hidden Mutton <272>
o Trawa and I Injure Each Other's Feet <273>
o The Death of Ache <275>
o Sentence Assembly Meeting <280>
o Displacement <283>
o Becoming a Butcher <284>

Rinam <286>
o Trade Between Herders and Farmers <286>
o Cloth in the Drito Area <288>
o Mother Gives Our Property to a Lama After Father's Death <289>
o I Work for the Monastery <290>
o Wrongly Sent to a Concentration Camp <292>
o Transporting Barley for the Chinese <293>
o Stepfather is Released from Jail in 1970 <298>
o Hunting Musk Dear and an Explosion in the Village <300>
o Team Leader <301>
o My Brothers' Visits <304>

Anam <306>
o Raised by Grandparents <306>
o My First Child <308>
o The Road to Chamdo <310>
o My Grandparents Drank Truck Oil <313>

Trashi Jikme <318>
o The Harvest <318>
o Chinese Come with Beasts with Two Backs <320>
o Following the Drawu Chief <321>
o A Shell Strikes My Tent <322>
o Mother is Arrested <325>
o I Become Mad <326>

Donyak <328>
o Village Rebellion <328>
o Diarrhea <333>

Afterword <336>
Tibetan and Chinese Terms <340>

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